Prayer
by Waldo
Summary: Only Kara would be afraid of being caught praying. Post Flesh and Bone


**Title: **Prayer

**Author: **Waldo.

**Rating **: PG, maybe PG-13 for made up swear words.

**SPOILERS **: Flesh and Bone (one of these days I'll write about a different ep.)

**Characters **: Apollo and Starbuck

**Summary: **"Only Kara would be afraid of being caught praying."

Prayer

By Waldo.

She had to know I wouldn't leave her alone. She made it through the debriefing with the president, Colonel Tigh, my dad and me, but just barely. She kept twisting her ring and playing with her dogtags and undoing and redoing the closures on her leg brace. It takes a lot to make Starbuck fidget.

I tried to talk to her in the halls, but she gave me wiseass answers and despite the cane and the brace essentially ran away from me. Catching her wouldn't have been a problem, but I got the message. She wanted to be left alone.

I followed her back to quarters, keeping a distance and not saying anything. Someone was coming out as I got there, so I caught the hatch as it was closing.

She opened her locker and hung up her jacket. There was something odd in the way she kept looking around, like she was about to do something she shouldn't. I had this awful flashback to when I was teaching and I'd been asked to help the M.P.s do a drug raid of a couple of kids who'd been stupid enough to show up to flight training stoned. They'd had that same shifty look when we'd come in.

Kara wasn't on drugs, I was sure. And she wasn't even drinking much now that everyone was so carefully hoarding what little alcohol there was left to find. Even when she did, she did so openly and proudly, and after what I'd heard in that debriefing she had actually earned a drink or three.

She was rummaging around through the things at the bottom of her locker, under duffle bags and books and a box I swore I recognized from being in flight training with her that she kept all her old music chips in.

I thought she pulled out a shirt at first, but when she started unfolding it, I realized that the cloth wasn't what she'd been after. Something was wrapped in it. She looked around the room again, and I was sure she was going to see me standing there, but she either didn't or she ignored me.

At first I couldn't see what she was holding, but then she started talking and I knew.

"Lords of Kobol hear my prayer…"

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away. Only Kara would be afraid of being caught praying.

I suppose it really didn't fit in with the hard-as-nails reputation she'd carefully cultivated, but again, after what I'd heard about the mind-frak this Leoben character had done on her, she was entitled to whatever comfort she could find. If she thought she needed to borrow a little strength and support from the Gods, I wasn't going to be the one to criticize.

"I don't know if he had a soul or not…"

Oh no… no no no no. She can't be praying for that thing. It can't possibly have frakked with her head that much. She can't seriously be contemplating the idea that he had a soul.

"…but if he did, look after it."

I bit my lip. I was intruding on what she wanted to be a very private moment. She'd waited until everyone else had left for either evening patrols or dinner. She wanted this to be her secret. Her own private hell, I suppose. Being the one who had to make the determination on whether or not Cylons had souls. Were alive.

Part of me wanted to run forward and wrap my arms around her and tell her that we'd never make her do anything like that again. Part of me wanted to slink off quietly before she caught me standing there and probably beat the shit out of me for not going away like she'd asked.

She stood at her locker for a while longer still holding her icons. She wasn't talking out loud any more, but I could tell that she was still praying. Still hoping for some kind of divine inspiration, I suppose.

My mother had made sure I took all the standard religious courses as a child, but when I'd turned thirteen she'd let me decide if I wanted to continue or not. I chose not. So while I could recite most of the major stories, identify the icons and images and even go through some of the standard rituals on my own, I didn't actually _have_ faith. Not as Kara apparently did.

It made me wonder how she could justify the way her life had gone with the idea that someone was supposed to be watching over her. How could any benevolent God or Goddess allow a child to be beaten in the ways Kara had hinted at on the few occasions I'd gotten her to open up about her childhood? How could they possibly allow the destruction of the billions and billions of people on the colonies? "All this has happened before and all this has happened again" be damned. It sounded like a good retroactive excuse if you asked me.

I sincerely hoped that Kara found whatever peace she needed through this, but I had to admit, I wouldn't be able to understand it if she did.

And how could she pray for that thing? That thing had the fleet spread out over half the system over a bomb that didn't exist. That thing that got into her head and frakked around with her. That thing that made her doubt herself and her purpose.

She picked up the cloth and wrapped the metal icons in it again and with another furtive glance around the room, buried them under a pile of common, everyday, stuff. When I saw her reach over to grab the edge of her locker door to slam it shut, I quickly banged the hatch into the opposite wall, as if I'd just arrived.

"Hey Starbuck, you go to dinner yet?" I asked casually.

She smiled at me a little crookedly. "I was just on my way."


End file.
